Feeding Fire
by BlenderChicken
Summary: Leo isn't normal. He knows that. He has a way with flames...beautiful, beautiful flames. Of course, he's run away. Been beaten up. Called an arsonist. But when a man comes offering a place where everyone else is like him, he snatches the opportunity...maybe a little too hard. He's different in a different way, and he's hiding a secret. How did Leo REALLY come to Hogwarts? One shot.


**So hey, this is my seventh fic, my second as BlenderChicken (I write on other sites under a different name.) Please review and tell me how it is!**

 **This was a collaboration with one of my out-of-internet friends (yes I made one, plz be proud but I mean all we do is text I've met them twice does that coouuunt?)**

 **This is pathetic i'll stop just read the darn thing**

* * *

"Ahem." Leo took a deep breath, grinning. "My name is Leo Valdez, I'm in sixth. You?" he held out his hand, realized how stupid he looked, and groaned.

The Leo in the bathroom mirror of the Hogwarts Express raised an eyebrow, as if to say, I've seen ladybugs try harder than that.

Real Leo glared at Bathroom Leo, who rolled his eyes. He tried again. "Ahem. My name is Leo Valdez, I'm in sixth grade. You?" His mechanical smile faltered into a frown, running his hand through his curly hair.

Bathroom Leo smirked, mirth behind his eyes, as if he couldn't believe he was stuck in a bathroom talking to this loser.

"Ahem. My name is Leo Valdez. I'm-woah!" Leo slipped on a puddle of soap someone had made on the floor, and grabbed the sink counter, nearly falling into a splits. Bathroom Leo roared with silent laughter, pounding on the mirror uncontrollably. "Hey!" Leo peered in the mirror angrily. "If that's what I look like when I laugh-That's not how I look. No-it's really not. Shut up! I look awesome. I'm awesome."

Bathroom Leo gave a long, silent, sigh, lit his index finger like a birthday candle, and set his his brown trousers aflame. The message was simple: _Liar, liar, pants on-_

Leo turned around so his back faced the mirror, his face scarlet, but Bathroom Leo simply waltzed around to the side he was facing and shook his burning pants in Leo's face. Finally, Leo couldn't take it. His hand lit up in flame, fury blazing, and was about to roast Bathroom Leo alive when a knock came from outside. "Hey, you okay? You've been in there for like...twenty minutes."

In panic, Leo attempted to put out the flames by wiping it on his clothes like barbeque sauce, but it just resulted in the slight smell of burned cotton. He looked around wildly, before Bathroom Leo pointed downwards, and Real Leo groaned. Oh wait, I'm in a damn bathroom.

He turned on the water, which he realized was a good move in two ways; it put out his fire with a slight hiss, and it made it seem like he was finishing up. "Yeah," he called back, "I'm good."

Leo returned to his cabin, the rocking of the train making it nearly impossible to look out the window without getting carsick. His fingers kept twitching and drumming on the table, and rubbing together absentmindedly as his thoughts flickered around. A smell of smoke reached Leo's nose, and he grabbed his hands, heart beating wildly. He took a shaky breath, rubbing his hands together even more.

The fact that he produced fire was crazy, but the fact that is was fire, well, that just seemed like some kind of sick joke. The worst part? It scared him like crazy. He never knew when he was going to explode, when his hands would catch alight.

As a kid, he'd moved around. Run away. Been beaten up. Devil, they called him. Jinx. Arsonist. Every time he'd almost started to fit in, boom. Suddenly he was a curse. He'd run to the streets when he was ten, and started doing little tricks, a-quarter-behind-the-ear for money, but people got tired of it. Around his eleventh birthday, he got ambitious, desperate, and starving, and had tried to made his hands catch.

That was when he first learned just how dangerous that beautiful, beautiful flame could be.

* * *

"Has anything strange ever happened to you that you can't explain?"

Leo stared into the man's dark eyes, his mind flashing towards the events. At the shelter. In the woods. ...His mother's workshop. His chest still throbbed from the boys' beating, so much it hurt to breathe, but he nodded.

The man's name tag read James Wilcox, which seemed nice enough, but Leo had noticed the bulk in his boot, something that looked suspiciously like a gun. "Little things?" he asked, "Your hair won't stay cut, all the sweaters you hate suddenly get a hole, your birthday candles suddenly catch fire without a lighter-"

"A lot more than candles have caught on fire." Leo didn't know why he had said it, but James smiled, which for some reason made Leo's heart speed up . He backed into the corner even more, his eyes glancing at the space under his arm. Very small, but small enough for a starved ten-year-old. James reached into his coat pocket, and Leo tensed, ready to bolt. But when his hand emerged, it was holding what looked like a ticket, and a napkin with writing on it. Leo took them tenderly, like a bomb.

"Go on, keep it. I'll take you to this address. Once we get there, everything will be fine. No, no-" he laughed, seeing Leo's expression. "It's not a foster home. It's a school. For kids like you. Kids with magic."

He'd heard it before. James didn't mean magic magic, he meant the cheesy 'magic of friendship' kind of stuff. A school for troubled kids...but as much as he was reluctant to admit it, he couldn't wander around forever.

Platform 9 ¾, September 1st.

The Leaky Cauldron, 1 Diagon Alley, London.

Leo looked up. James was sitting quietly against the alley wall, but stood up almost immediately, making Leo back against the corner again. He glanced at his little window, under James's arm, and pocketed the ticket. He heard the rustle of clothing; James had knelt down. "Let me show you something."

He tried putting his hand on Leo's shoulder, but he recoiled before the touch. His window had disappeared. He was trapped. His brain went on overdrive, and he felt his hands grow warm.

But it was when James reached into his boot that Leo snapped. His hands flamed behind his back, and in pure panic, he thrust them out front. But it wasn't a gun...It was a stick sort of thing, like a wand.

The wand shot a bolt of light towards Leo, who would have been hit by it if he hadn't been so skinny. His hands were on fire now, and he was more scared than he could ever remember being. James snatched him up, and Leo yelled out. He grabbed onto James, with flaming hands….and his whole body burst into flame.

Leo had cooked meat before, and knew what happened. First, it turned brown. Then it turned crispy. Then black, and then it vanished into a pile of ash.

Leo remembered what happened to live meat all too well.

James screamed in agony. Boils appeared on his face, and the piercing wail echoed in Leo's ears, but he didn't stop. James's hand turned black, and crumbled. A chunk of arm shattered, then the torso, until all that was left was scorch marks on the walls. There was nothing left to scream for him, just a black pile that used to be a man.

Leo had done that.

Leo had taken a piece of life and destroyed it.

There was nothing left of the man but his straight, black wand. It was still warm, and upon closer look, intricate patterns and symbols spiraled up the wood. Leo picked it up, and pocketed that too. He could sell it, or…

He glanced at the ticket in his hand, for platform 9 ¾, and the brink of an idea blossomed in his mind. Returning the ticket his pocket, Leo vanished, shaking, around the corner of the alley. And without looking back, began the long, long, long walk to King's Cross station.

I can't run away forever.

 **So, this originally came from my other story, which I deleted, and I made it into a one-shot. This really really sucks wow i might actually delete it**


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